Chapter 21
U.C. 0094.3.10
The Garden of Thorns, Loum Debris Field, L4
Office of the Supreme Commander
"But first, would you like a cup of coffee, or tea?" I gestured at the coffee table, though really it was a coffee bar, because of course my extravagant office had to include its own refreshment bar with all the elaborate fixings. I put the blame on Delaz, because he seemed like the guy who would have a gilded french press, but it did make fine coffee.
"Not going to get straight down to business?" Nanai inquired, tilting her head to the side a bit at my offer.
"I am playing the role of host at the moment, so why not be as accommodating as possible?" I replied, moving over to the refreshment bar and taking out two porcelain cups. "Besides, I hear that prison food isn't known for its…flavor."
Nanai hummed in agreement with my words. "Bland is too kind a word to describe the food."
"Then please, help yourself." I said while beginning to make myself a cup. I heard footsteps, muffled by the thick maroon carpet of the office, approach me before Nanai Miguel was suddenly at my side, making her own cup of coffee.
"Not going to make one for me?" She said softly. Her words barely reached my ears.
"I can hardly presume to know the preferences of someone I've never met." I matched her tone. "It would be rather rude."
Nanai hummed. When we both had our cups, prepared to our individual liking (I took note that she liked hers with more cream than sugar) I gestured over to the other side of the office where a pair of black leather couches sat, a low table made of some pale wood, separating the two.
"Please, sit." I said, doing my best to keep a calm facade. I wasn't used to there being a power imbalance when I interacted with other people. People other than Martha Vist Carbine that is, but I'd expected that and planned accordingly. She had also needed Neo Zeon and myself for Anaheim's own warmongering purposes.
Did Nanai Miguel have a use for me? I had a use for her, certainly. The question remained: was I staring down a one-way or two-way street?
"Thank you." Was Nanai's simple response.
"Well then, I suppose it's time we get down to brass tacks, you and I." I started, playing a half empty china cup on the low coffee table and lacing my fingers together.
Her lips quirked up into a half smile. "You've taken the words right out of my mouth it seems."
She took another small sip of coffee, still seeming to savor each one.
"But in this case, I believe it's best for the gentleman to go first instead of the lady." She said, giving me a smile.
Alright then, let's start off with the low hanging fruit.
"I understand that there have been some questions from your contingent-" It couldn't hurt to pet her ego right?"-regarding the reinstatement of rank and position." I handed over a packet of papers to Nanai. "You understand that I can't simply demote those men and women I have already placed to fill the vacancies, but where possible, the remainder can slip right back into place."
Nanai placed the papers to the side, addressing me directly. "And who have had their positions 'filled' as you put it."
I didn't grimace at her words or shy away from them. There had been critical leadership positions that were empty, and I had filled them. I wasn't going to replace them just because the old hands had been found alive, especially not right after my appointees had undergone their trial by fire in Operation Left Hook and proven that my trust in them was well placed. It'd be suicidal to say the least but Nanai Miguel didn't seem to be pressing for that kind of reversal.
"Who wants to know?" I gave a question for a question.
"Lyle Kynes for one. He happened to notice that his ship has been taken from him. Along with a handful of other captains." She shrugged her shoulders. "My mobile suit pilots understand the lack of available suits, and as for the gunners, mechanics and petty officers and all the rest, your ships aren't fully manned anyways. So no issue for them really."
"So that just leaves the people with fancy rank tabs." I stated, finishing off my coffee. It had gone down to lukewarm in temperature, leaving a sticky feeling in the back of my throat. My eyes quickly darted over to the other side of the room where a pitcher of ice water was. Drat, too far away to go get without looking like an idiot.
"Your words, not mine." But the glint in her eyes told me that she might agree with my words.
Luckily I already had an answer prepared for that question. "Please do tell Captain Kynes, Blasten and Gretchelen that while my appointments of command will remain, and that they will not be given command of their previous ships moving forward, Neo Zeon does have vacant captaincies that they will be appointed to after I have the chance to meet with them."
"Lyle will be disappointed that he's not getting the Rewloola back, he was very fond of her." Nanai idly ran a finger around the lip of the china cup.
"So has Hill, I must confess." I said. "A sure sign that she's a special ship."
Nanai giggled and covered her mouth with her free hand to stifle them. "You put Hill Dawson in command of the Rewloola? Oh Lyle is going to be fuming."
"They have a rivalry?" I prompted.
"Oh nothing that strong, Lyle just thinks Hill has the personality of a dead fish. Snrrk!" She started giggling again and it seemed to me that a weight was being lifted from her with each bout of mirth.
I ruefully shook my head. "I have half a mind to tell Hill about this, but I have the feeling that he wouldn't take it in the humor it needed if I did."
"Oh my, no!" That set her off again, and I joined in this time. Hill Dawson would be fuming at the idea that he couldn't take a joke, but since his face had the emotional range of a dead fish, not a person in the hypothetical room would be able to tell!
Nanai maintained her composed giggling while I laughed aloud but it seemed that all too soon that the merriment of the moment had faded away, leaving the room to the returned silence.
"So if you are confident that my captains will have replacement ships soon, then you must have secured a regular supply line then. Most likely from Anaheim if I had to guess." Nanai spoke first, leading the conversation along the previous thread.
"Anaheim has accepted a line of gold payments in exchange for providing Neo Zeon with critical mobile suit materials that we would be unable to produce ourselves without attracting unnecessary attention, along with a successor design for the Geara Doga. I've also secured a line of credit for our allies in Side 6 so that they can begin to build up their forces alongside our own mobilization efforts." I said eagerly. Mobile suits and supply chains came easier to me than dancing around questions about my past. I figured we come to that giant question mark at Nanai's own pace. I certainly wasn't going to push the issue.
"We have a surplus of Musaka-class cruisers from Char's original order with Anaheim that need full crews now that we've taken ownership of them but in the long term I've created plans to re-activate and modernize the old naval foundries and mobile suit production lines that Delaz constructed when this was his haunt. Those should be ready for implementation once our adjustment process is finished."
Strangely enough, I'd come to value the anonymity that being Full Frontal had given me over the months since rebirth. Going by such an obvious nomme-de-guerre had warded off any probes into my non-existent past in the Universal Century. To Zinnerman and Dawson, I had just passed 'Full Frontal' off a name that allowed me to dance between fake identities as needed, not something that I was attached to. An itch in the back of my mind told me that previous deflections wouldn't stick right now.
"Adjustment process? Is that what we're calling it now?" Nanai asked. "The "process" where you decide whether or not I'm of any use to you, and what should be done with me if I am?"
My mouth tugged down in a frown. Where had that come from?
Nanai saw my confusion and tapped the lower right side of her ribcage. "I do have eyes, you know. I can see the impression the gun leaves on your coat."
She gave an exaggerated shrug. "I understand how this goes Full Frontal, I've even been on the other side of this conversation one or two times before. So let's cut to the meat already and make your offer."
"It's a dangerous world, Mrs. Miguel." I said. "So I have to wonder why being armed would be a sticking point for you?"
"Besides the fact that I'm not?" She asked in reply.
"The availability of side arms is low, and my medical corp wants all of the recently liberated to fully focus on their recovery, not getting back into the fight straight away." I chuckled. "And I push the patience of my doctors too much as it is, so I'm doing what they advise me this time. My apologies for any discomfort it's caused you."
"Very convenient, wouldn't you say?" Nanai said, waving a hand in a circular motion. "That all of these 'disruptive elements' are unarmed and surrounded by men and women loyal to you and you alone, their fates left to the whims of you and you alone. Wouldn't you be concerned if you were in my position Full Frontal?"
I pondered the question for a moment. Would I be doing anything different were the roles reversed? Then I figured it didn't matter what I would do in her situation, the roles were what they were and wasting time going down alternate universes where they were reversed was pointless. So I kept moving the conversation forward. I didn't want to be drawn into a conversational quagmire.
But if us two were now in a duel of words, maybe a minor detour would keep myself firmly in control going forward.
"I have to wonder Mrs. Miguel if your discomfort isn't caused by your familiarity with this situation. Only this time, you're not the one holding all the cards." I stated. Her face became much more guarded at my words and her green eyes lost their openness from the previous mirth that had been present in the room.
"I'm sure I don't know what you could mean by that, Full Frontal."
I gave a tight lipped smile at her words. "I'm sure Captain Pazzom didn't know what you meant either Mrs. Miguel. But enough about the past." The "for the moment" part was left unsaid.
"Please." Was the clipped reply.
"So to continue, I propose that your contingent undergo a process of gradual re-integration into Neo Zeon's ranks. Where it is possible, positions will be found that match the prior ranks the soldiers had before their capture but due to the condensing of the ranks after Axis, it is important that you brief your contingent that a real chance exists that they will find themselves reinstituted at ranks lower than what they used to hold."
"However, this will only be a concern for officers of high ranks. The average pilot, gunner, engineer, or crewman will be folded back under the banner with barely a bump."
"Is this the part where you offer me a tempting rank and title so that I'll come over to your camp?" A still manicured blonde eyebrow was raised as Nanai asked her question. I wondered where she had found the time to do personal grooming in the small amount of time that had passed between her liberation and this meeting.
"Well I'm not going to give you command of the fleet if that's what you're asking for Mrs. Miguel." I stated. "But I intend to see you restored to your former rank of Lieutenant, with all back pay paid in full for the time you spent as a prisoner of war. And I hope that you will accept reinstatement as my Chief Tactical Officer. Neo Zeon can only benefit from having one of the minds behind the Axis Drop and Luna V Blitz back among its tactical ranks."
"Char planned the Axis Drop, not me." Nanai corrected me.
"Of course." I allowed that to go unchallenged. "But, and I have the records to prove this, you played a substantial role in shaping the operational procedures and organizing the military aspects of the operation. So no need to be so modest."
"Playing to my pride isn't going to get you what you want, Frontal."
"No, of course not." I leaned back into the couch. "I feel that you're not that kind of woman, but I can offer you what you want."
"And what do I want?" She quirked an eyebrow. Heh, playing hard to get? Alright by me, I could hardly expect a woman of class to just come out and make the offer herself. In the back of my head, The Will hummed its incorporeal noise of agreement.
"Re-venge, simple as." I declared, counting off the reasons on my hand. "The Federation killed Char Aznable, the man you loved. The Federation stopped the Axis Blitz, the goal Char Aznable worked to fulfill. The Federation stopped the dream of Char from becoming a reality. The Federation also threw you in a supermax prison with the full intention of subjecting you to a life-long sentence of hard labor on the Moon."
"I already hate the Federation, and I did long before now." She replied.
I gave a winning smile that the girls in the media department had coached me on. "Of course you do, who doesn't hate the Federation these days. But, I am the only person fighting against the Federation. The forces you see were assembled through my will and direction alone. You want revenge, Nanai Miguel, and I am the only person who can give it to you."
"Oh you could strike out on your own. You'd become an irreplaceable component of whatever two bit terrorist gang you fell in with. Then you'd be killed in a EFF specs ops raid, having accomplished nothing more than a few minor bombings of spaceports." I shrugged. It was obvious to me that she had nowhere better to go than back to Neo Zeon. She knew it too.
So hopefully she'd give up her pride and just rejoin. I didn't want to bring up Char anymore than I had to, the poor lady had suffered enough heartbreak in the past year without a blonde asshole in a fancy neo-napoleonic jacket digging into her for his own gain.
Come on Nanai, don't make me be the asshole here.
…that was familiar of me. Wait, I barely knew this woman, despite all that I had read of her, in official reports and what was present in Char's datapad. We weren't friends, barely even acquaintances. Why did I feel like we were closer?
After a long moment of contemplation from Nanai, she answered. "Well that isn't an approach Char would have taken if you truly were him. He would have… wowed me with his vision for a new mankind, where we weren't slowly destroying the Earth. He would have held me and whispered that Axis hadn't been for nothing. That we'd only just struck the first blow against the Federation. That he had new inspiration to make his father's dream come true." She looked very sad.
"My condolences for your loss, Mrs. Miguel." I said softly. "And I am sorry to put to rest any hope of Char Aznable still being alive."
"No, it was a prisoner's hope I suppose. I dreamed that the Sazabi would crash through the roof of Diyu and fly me far, far away from that place." She sighed. "Things don't turn out like that outside dreams, I know. But it was a good dream while I needed to dream it."
"But it's time to put dreams back on the shelf in which they belong." She turned her attention to another topic, more liveliness entering her face and voice with the change. "I've looked over your speeches and I couldn't help but notice that you make little mention of Zeon Zum Deikun's ideology in them. Your paid radio host is also very specific in dancing around Deikun's beliefs when the Earth comes up. Your Neo Zeon prefers to treat Earth as an oppressor to be cast off, not a planet to be conserved and treated from the depredations that humanity has inflicted upon it."
"The Deikun ideology had its moment in the spotlight, both in the 0060s and last year. It was the spark that lit the fire of spacenoids both then and now, but the cause must move beyond its limited scope. Contolism burns bright and quick when it erupts, but Zeonism is what drives people to long term action." I explained. "It is and was necessary to turn away from Contolism moving forward. Aside from my personal ideological differences with it, my plans call for a massed uprising, the greater spacenoid populace finally forced to open their eyes, see the tyranny of the Federation and then take collective action against the Federation."
"Contolism won't allow us to force the final confrontation between space and the Earth. Zeonism has done so in the past and will continue to do so under my leadership." I declared.
"Yet I've noticed a distinct lack of media revolving around the Zabi heir." Nanai commented.
"Zeonism is not Zabism Mrs. Miguel. I have no intention to use a teenager as a propaganda tool. Especially one who is so against the cause she supposedly embodies." I said.
"Yet you don't turn away those who have the sole purpose of Zabism driving them like Char did." She observed.
"Char Aznable had very little intention of outliving his plan Mrs. Miguel. His plans, every single one of them involving the Axis Drop, never address what happens after its completion. No clean up of the remaining EFSF bases or an attempt to negotiate a surrender from the colonial administration in Side 1 following the elimination of Dakar." I raised a finger. "And most importantly, he never makes a single mention of how the new earthnoid refugees would be folded into human society after a spacenoid group had destroyed their entire world for the next thousand years, give or take a century."
"I mean, I assume that if he planned to come back from the Axis Drop that he'd have victory speeches worked out or plans on where the fleet was to regroup. No chain of command was set up for if he was out of communication following the greatest release of Minovsky particles since 0089. Not a single inclusion of where the Sweetwater government, his own advisors and government officials no less, should evacuate to if the EFSF came knocking for vengeance for the false surrender the Drop was planned around! It shows an appalling lack of basic care for subordinates who entrusted him with their very lives!" I shouted, the indignant rage I had been feeling for months at Char's lack of action, of basic care for his troops boiled over. It had been gradually building for months now, as I read over the journal Char had kept. It had really grown with the batches of processing interview reports that had made their way to my desk from the liberated prisoners of Diyu.
There had just been no plan! It was pointless, wasteful and completely disrespectful to trust and oaths sworn to him!
Then I remembered myself and who I was semi-shouting at, and tamped down on the anger. This was not the time or the person to be expressing it. Master yourself Full Frontal, master yourself.
"My apologies for my outburst." I said. "I have strong feelings about the Axis Drop and you shouldn't have to hear them so soon."
"Oh so I'll be hearing them in the future then?"
"Hopefully as part of a rigorous conversation regarding the planning of future major operations." I said, sheepishness creeping up into my words. I always felt like a fool after yelling for no good reason.
"You said that you'd looked over Char's notes for the operation but I know that those were locked behind the highest possible encryption. Inaccessible to anyone but Char." The obvious question was left unsaid. I took the redirection of the conversation away from my blunder and into where, I believed, it was always going to end up.
"Inaccessible to anyone with significant genetic similarity to Char you mean. His sister, for example, would easily be able to unlock this datapad." I withdrew the thin gunmetal gray rectangle with its faded gold designs from the inside of my jacket. "But she remains far from the sight even my far reaching eyes, so the odds that I'd find her successfully, let alone obtain the type of DNA required by this lock, are incredible."
I scrolled through the contents of the pad, digging deep into the files for one folder in particular. Of course Char had to be finicky about how his tech was set up. Bloody false routes and hidden folders around every fucking tab of this device.
"So that really only leaves one option, if you're in the know." I looked up from the device, having found what I wanted. "Only Char Aznable's body could access this but since the original went and burned up in re-entry, some people had to get creative and make themselves a new one."
I passed the pad over the Nanai. On the screen, in bright green text, were the words PROJECT AMRITA.
"What can you tell me about this?" I asked, pointing at the screen. Nanai's eyes, which were green I noticed, widened at the text. Then she began rapidly looking down at the datapad, up to me, down to the screen, then back to me.
"Oh." She gasped, grasping the datapad with both hands. Her knuckles were white.
"Not the scientific or technical bits, they don't make much sense to me anyways." I waved a hand. "I want to know why. Why sign off on a cloning program? Why bother with the effort, the expense of it all?"
"I've read just about every memo, speech draft, email and personal thought the son of Zeon Zum Deikun typed into existence on that device and there is nothing, nothing, in there to suggest that he had a contingency plan for what would happen after his death. Or that the mere possibility of his death had ever crossed his mind. Which I view as insane considering the risks he assumed by leading from the front during the war." I shook my head. "Pivoting to another possibility, nothing suggests that this was some kind of super soldier experiment. Char had already heavily invested into your Newtype labs and given the close personal and professional relationship, what reason would he have to create your competitor."
I rubbed my eyes, the lack of sleep was beginning to really catch up for me. "You would know more about this than anyone still alive, so I'm coming to you wi-"
"It wasn't a cloning project or a new newtype laboratory." Nanai interjected, cutting me off. Surprise was still lingering on her face as she began to speak.
"Char wasn't…he wasn't as young as he used to be. His health had become a factor we needed to have contingencies for due to the strain placed on the body by piloting a mobile suit, and…and that was only one of the major health concerns the physicians had. There were worries about radiation exposure, deep space travel and its effects, hell even his diet came up as a concern. More than once!"
I felt ice plunge into my gut. She was looking at me with horror and it was growing.
"I have to tell you that I don't believe in cloning Full Frontal. I find it to be a horrific moral and ethical violation of the most basic human rights." She declared. "All that the lab created were replacement organs, blood and bone marrow. Not a single piece of brain matter or nerve or skin or hair or God knows what else that would be needed to create a functional body was ever created under my orders. They weren't even created as a composite unit, we built them organ by organ."
"My God, what did they do after I left?" She asked herself.
I remained silent. My thoughts rolled together. Confusion warred against the waves of anger.
I had thought I was special, literally special. A chosen warrior created to fulfill a singular purpose.
It was the reason I had crafted the public persona I had. Because I had thought I was special, and really believed it.
"Shit." I muttered. What a fucking idiot I had been. Oh of course, someone who was fucking stored in a tube and subjected to brainwashing actually was an object of importance and not a fucking abomination of science, numbered like a fucking lab rat. Good job Mark, really pulled that one out of your fucking ass.
You fucking idiot!
I was just spare parts that had been cobbled together for the last hail mary. It had really been obvious from the start, a former dictator's ghost stuffing me in the body notwithstanding.
I'm the fool for thinking it meant something.
"Does the start matter to you if no one else cares?" My mental companion piped up. "I once thought that being just the son of Zeon Deikun mattered. It turned out that it was me who mattered, not my father. Think about it."
Then he fucked off back into his Fortress of Solitude, very unhelpfully not saying anything else.
It sounded ridiculous to even consider in my own thoughts, but the Will of Char had a point. I was Full Frontal, Leader of Neo Zeon and nobody had made me do it(I think). I fought because I believed in the cause. That had to be enough.
For now.
"Tabling that conversation for now." I spoke up, breaking the silence that had fallen. Again. "You have much to offer Neo Zeon Mrs. Miguel, and I want you alongside me. Do it for Char's memory, do it for your fellow spacenoids, do it for revenge. I won't probe for your personal motives, nor those of any of my soldiers. I only ask for loyalty to Neo Zeon and dedication to your comrades who place their trust in you."
I held out my hand.
"You and Char Aznable were great servants of our fellow spacenoids during the time before Axis. You gave hope and better lives to millions at Sweetwater and for three years, your rebuilt Neo Zeon served as a deterrent to further repressive laws from the Federation. You were a champion of spacenoids, Nanai Miguel."
"Can we count on you to be one again?"
Later, I convened a meeting of my command staff. Hill Dawson and his direct aides stood on one side while Zinnerman and his second, Marida Cruz, stood to the other. Some might call it a sparse showing or a sign of the hard times Neo Zeon had fallen on.
Any who thought such were fools, in my opinion. What stood before me were the leaders of a fighting force that had been trimmed of the extraneous fat of two bloated military bureaucracies, leaving behind a lean and efficient fighting force that could travel faster and fight longer than the EFSF with the scraps of resources we managed to gather or buy.
I couldn't wait to see what they could do with full bellies and rested minds.
"Today there will be a new, permanent addition to these meetings." I stepped to the side, allowing Nanai Miguel, dressed in a spare dark red officers uniform she had found in the Rewloola, to enter the room. "Please welcome back to the ranks Lieutenant Miguel. Going forward she will be Neo Zeon's Chief Operations Officer and Director of the Newtype Development Lab once it is re-established."
I sat down, my subordinates following in turn.
"Now then, let's begin the formal debrief for Operation Left Hook. I want to know our successes, our failures and solutions to prevent those failures moving forward. Captain Zinnerman, please begin your report."
As Zinnerman, still wearing that green trench coat instead of the perfectly good uniform I knew he had been issued, started speaking, I started to plan our next move in the back of my head.
And unfortunately, it was going to involve another meeting with my favorite company and my favorite person in that company.
Martha Vist Carbine had better have my Sinanju ready after what we had done for her.
But there was a dark thought that lingered in my head. If I was, in essence, an experimental clone, was I the only attempt or just the only successful version?
Can't post my author's note for some reason. But glad to be back, hope everyone enjoyed.